I won’t pretend like we had the most successful week.  It seems like we’ve had more doctors appointments in the past 2 weeks than in my entire lifetime.  But we’re slowly getting back on track!

We did our regular Calvert lessons this week.  We’re still getting into the routine of Calvert, but I’m really enjoying it.

First, our China studies.  I think I’ll have to find most of the materials for these country studies myself…and I promise to share!  For this first one I am using letteroftheweek.com’s Country Studies, and I’ll probably model other countries off the same kinds of information.

We started by talking about the globe: the oceans, the continents, where we live, etc.   Then we talked about where China is and I guess he understood because he said we couldn’t drive there, we would have to fly.

We printed out this coloring sheet which conveniently also has some Chinese symbols and the Chinese flag right on it!

We also talked about the Chinese language a bit.  We learned how to say hello (ni hao) and goodbye (zai jian) in Chinese and we sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  I happen to know that in Chinese from a short language course in the 3rd grade.  It’s crazy the things that stick with us!

The lyrics to Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star in Chinese:

yi shan, yi shan, liang jing jing

man tian dou shi xiao xing xing

gua zai tian shang fang guang ming

hao xiang xu duo xiao yan jing

yi shan, yi shan, liang jing jing

man tian dou shi xiao xing xing

We’ve finally planted a garden!!  Thankfully it doesn’t get too cold in the winter here in Alabama so we’re able to have winter crops.  Both Baloo and Royal “helped” me put these earth boxes together, and with any luck we’ll have some green beans, squash, dill, spinach, and carrots before long!!  Baloo has asked to check on his plants every day so far.

We’ve actually managed to spend a lot of time in the backyard recently!!  My wonderful DH has been working all month on getting the backyard to a playable state.  When we moved in it was horrible overgrown, full of ants, HUGE spiders, and snakes.  He’s mowed it a few times, cleared out the sticks and such, and put down any killer.

So we got out the Buzz Lightyear sprinkler and let loose!!  The rocket actually shoots straight up into the air and Baloo did a few experiments with setting the water pressure to low, medium, and high, and seeing how far the rocket went.

We playing with the stacking/nesting blocks.  The boys saw how far they could get the ball to roll down the stack.

Baloo got these Automoblox for his birthday in July and he’s starting to be fascinated with them!!  He made this long car with all different color wheels!

And lastly, we finally got all the books set up on the bookshelf (in the closet on the left, can’t see it here!)  I came back to find both boys engrossed in their books.

That’s it for us this week!!  Next week we are finishing up our China studies with some cooking, a few books and songs, and hopefully some crafty type things!

Make sure to check out homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com for more preschool ideas!